An Automated “Radiologist” Named Avicenna

IBM is placing a big bet that computational medicine will be the fulcrum between the digital patient and the digital doctor. Its latest development is a beta-test software program they’ve named “Avicenna,” after the 11th century Persian physician-philosopher, which can integrate image text and test data automatically, and thus serve as a radiology assistant. In a demonstration of the program’s capability, Avicenna diagnosed a pulmonary embolism in a young woman, which a human radiologist confirmed. MORE